


Always and forever

by Ravenclaw_Peredhel



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Athenodora doesn't exist, F/M, Marcus' sister is Caius' soulmate, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25144894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenclaw_Peredhel/pseuds/Ravenclaw_Peredhel
Summary: She cannot remember a world without him.He has protected and loved her since they were very young.
Relationships: Aro/Sulpicia (Twilight), Caius (Twilight)/Original Female Character(s), Didyme/Marcus (Twilight)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 53





	Always and forever

Her first memory, whether human or vampire, is him. 

The fuzzy human memory is distant and fragmented, but what she does remember is crystal clear. It cannot have been the first time that they met, but it is the first memory that she has of him, the first memory that she has at all. They are outside the city, she does not know why or when, running through a meadow filled with flowers, laughing and shouting, until, worn out, they collapse on the ground, watching the clouds go sailing by.

Her first memory of him after her change is much clearer. He waits by her side as she changes, waits for her to open her eyes, and when she does, and looks at him, his perfect features breaks into a smile like the sun coming from behind the clouds. 

She cannot remember a world before he was there, but she can remember a world without him. He disappeared barely a seven-day after they were promised to each other. From her 17th to her 19th year, she lived behind a smiling, laughing mask, her eyes the only sign to her torment as she forced herself to exist without him there, until he came to her one day as she wept in the meadow, shining as the sun caught his skin as though he were made of diamonds. He took her away, changing her, so that she and he could be together for eternity. She said that that reasoning was sappy, and he always laughed and said it was true notwithstanding. 

She does not like to remember the time without him, the days that stretched into weeks, then months, and finally years. Where she could not follow him around the city, or go with him to the meadow. She would turn to talk to him, to pull his white blond hair to get his attention or just to annoy him, and he would not be there. She would think that she heard his merry, mocking laughter on the breeze, or see him leaning against a wall, but he was never there. 

He was always there for her before that. The laughing boy, five years her elder who ran and played with her in their meadow, who comforted her when she fell and grazed her knee. The youth who held her as she wept when her heart was broken by a callous child and went with her still to the meadow, even if his brothers and hers teased him for picking flowers and spending time with a girl, until he fought them and won. The young man who loved her secretly, but said nothing until he found her weeping, believing him to love her as no more than a sister. 

It is winter now, and the flowers in their meadow are dead. But, as they have for thousands of years, even before winter ends, as soon as the days begin to lengthen and the warmth to return, the meadow will come back to life, the flowers blooming. 

The meadow is still there, still theirs, because it is their place, the place where they have spent some of their happiest memories. No one but them has ever set foot in it for centuries, whether human or immortal. 

She leans back on her throne, smiling at him as the petulant 'mind reader' begs for death. She is bored with this audience already, and it has scarcely begun. What does she care for a child who believes his singer is dead. If he does not have the sense to realise that she has probably gone cliff diving. It is quite popular among humans now she hears, though they cannot jump from cliffs high enough for it to truly be fun as vampires can. 

Hopefully, the audience will be finished soon, and they can visit their meadow, the one thing that they have kept from their human lives. They can no longer run through the city in the sun, covered in mud and soaked to the skin from jumping and splashing in the fountains, carrying armfuls of bright, fragrant flowers, looking more like street urchins than the children of two of the lords of the province. But they can still go to their meadow, chasing each other, and weaving garlands of flowers, picking huge armfuls of the vibrant blossoms, lying next to each other and watching the clouds go by as they did millenia ago, when they were children, and their biggest concern was whether or not they would be able to steal some plums from the orchard without their parents knowing. 

Occasionally, she misses that time, when they were children, and they could run through the city in the sunlight, bedraggled and laughing. They are immortal now, young and beautiful forever, unless they die in battle, powerful, ruling an entire race. But still, she sometimes misses the feel of the sun on her face and the wind in her hair, wet clothes flapping around her as she runs with Caius through the city, jumping in fountains and giving flowers to every old woman that they meet, earning smiles and pats on the head. Sometimes, she missed being human, with sleep and food and walking in the sunlight openly. But she has Caius, and they can still go to their meadow, and it is more than she needs.

************

He hardly remembers a world without her, a world where she did not exist.

His earliest memory of her is one of the earliest that he remembers at all. He was five, and his best friend Marcus, two years his elder, was showing him and Aro his new baby sister. She was very small, with a tuft of bright red hair and dark blue eyes, barely an hour or so old, wrapped in white blankets. He though that she was beautiful, even then, but Aro declared her quite ugly. It was the first fight that had ever broken out between the three.

He remembers the first time that they went to the meadow far more clearly than she. She was still a toddler, maybe three or four years are the most. Their parents had taken them all into the woods, and he and she had run off, he no longer knew why. They had found a beautiful meadow, sheltered by tall trees all around it, and filled with butterflies and the brightest, most beautiful flowers that he had ever seen. He still remembers the look on her face, alight with wonder at the beautiful place, her red hair tangled and blowing everwhere and her big blue eyes, inherited from her Gaulish mother, wide with excitement.

He remembers also, the first time that they splashed and fought in the fountains on the way back to the castle after visiting the meadow. 

He does not know when exactly he realised that his love for her was not that of a brother. But he likes to think that it was the day that she first began their tradition of giving flowers to the old ladies in the street, when she saw an old crone sitting in the square begging. She went straight up to the old woman, giving her a small bunch of the beautiful flowers, and tucking one in her hair. They never saw the old woman after that, but from that golden afternoon came a tradition of the two bringing huge bright, sweetly scented armfuls of bloom to the city from the meadow and roaming the streets, giving flowers to every old woman they met, many of whom had outlived their own families. The two had made many friends this way, and had visited them often, sometimes bringing friends and siblings, sometimes a small gift, fruit or pastries or a warm shawl for the winter, somtimes bringing nothing but their smiles and a bunch of flowers. He wonders what happened to the old women, after he and Rhea 'died'. Maybe Hermione or Lysandra or Julia or Flavia continued visiting their friends, maybe Octavius or Augustine continued to help them. He doubts it, for their siblings were not particularly close to them. It had always been him and Rhea, Aro and Sulpicia, Marcus and Didyme. They had loved their siblings and been loved by them, just as they had loved and been loved by their parents. But their closest bond had always been between the six of them. 

Rhea barely remembers their human families. She knows their names and whispers them sometimes, as though reminding herself that they were real people. But she has only faint memories of faces and echoes of voices. He tells himself that it is a good thing that she does not remember those long ago, long dead people. That she does not miss them, and wonder what happened to them. He thinks that she was too young to remember them, being the youngest turned out of all of them by two years. But it hurts sometimes, when he mentions their mothers doing something, or their fathers laughing at them as they try to shoot bows far to big for them and she looks at him blankly, unable to remember the dead as he can, as all of them but she can. He wonders if it was because of what she went through as a human, if her mind has shut out as many of those memories as possible.

He has loved her as long has he can remember, for a few fleeting years as a brother, and for centuries of life, as a husband, and a lover, and a friend. There have been few times in his life that he has been unable to help her. The worst was when she changed. He had bitten her, and then, when her screams rang out, he had felt a terrible, burning pit of guilt, burning its way though his body. Those were the worst three days and nights of his life, watching as his love burned, unable to stop or ease the pain. 

He watches her now, slyly, as they sit on their thrones, waiting for the Cullens to bring in their human pet. She is speaking to Didyme and Sulpicia, the three giggling and whispering together as they did when they were children. She glances at him, and his breath leaves his body in a rush of air. He wonders sometimes how her eyes, once a bright, innocent blue, now a crimson just as bright and beautiful, but far less innocent, have the ability to hold him captive so easily still, after over 30 centuries. She smirks at him, just as she did the other day during the Cullen boy's audience and he grins back at her, the looks heavy and full of a lust that burns with the same fire as when they first kissed in the meadow, all those years ago.

He sighs, eager now to have this over and done with, so that he can spirit her away and they can love each other over and over again. Maybe this will be done soon. Then he hears the Cullen boy's intransigent comment and groans inwardly. It will be a while before he and Rhea can leave. 


End file.
